Community art as an egalitarian participatory practice
(2025)
author(s): BANGHUA SUN
published in: Research Catalogue
The most discussed participatory art projects today for their values, are always based on either breaking new ground (or shaking the theoretical foundations of public art, or existing frameworks and definitions), significantly expanding participation (which is still as an important, even decisive indicator), or elevating the audience/recipients to a position of priority (or using local indicators to evaluate success or failure).The results are often hidden rather than immediately apparent on the surface. The core issue here is to what extent the choices of participants are respected, or how to minimize intervention in their choices? This study aims to re-examine the two aesthetic preferences represented by Kester and Bishop—collaboration and antagonism—as an extension of Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics, further developing them into two distinct approaches: bottom-up, community-based collaborative and dialogic participatory art, and top-down, large-scale participatory art. Today, non-community participatory art is generally understood as an attempt to control the audience’s perception and interpretation, exerting a broader influence and gaining favor among critics as a form of post-elite art. Community art, on the other hand, is often questioned for its aesthetic value, with its social value as an priority, being emphasized in the context of excessive intervention by art institutions and governments, resulting in a smaller influence and little attention from critics. If these limitations are overcome, community art can practically enable the public to reach the true “collaborator” stage of participation. This study serves as a further reflection on the position of community art in today’s art world, as presented in Matarasso’s book A Restless Art (2019), and provides a value assessment diagram for participatory art, attempt to clarify the practical value of community art as the significant participatory art through a visual model.
"Artistic Research on Socially and Environmentally Engaged Art - Ethics of Gathering
(2020)
author(s): Katja Juhola, Maria Huhmarniemi, Kaisa Johanna Raatikainen
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
Art symposiums and similar gatherings in which international artists come together to collaborate are a longstanding tradition of the global art world. In 2019, artists and environmental researchers and experts were invited to work with a local school on environmental issues to create place-specific art and scientific collaborations. Three interdisciplinary teams focused on locally current topics. In this article, we present the process of one of them: the freshwater pearl mussels sub-project. In addition, we discuss the research practice of the International Socially Engaged Art Symposium and the ethics related to the gathering. The research practice included various forms of dialogue, such as presentations, structured group discussions, reflections, mentoring and art-based practice with community members. Tight living together in a humble, small house supported the dialogue. Environmental issues, critical environmentalist thinking and the ethics of the practices were discussed in the process. The ethical elements of the symposium were considered during the processes of defining the themes and aims, curating and producing the event, respecting peer artists and researchers, interacting respectfully with the surrounding community such as school children and community members in countryside villages, and non-human nature, considering the environmental footprint of the symposium and aiming for a meaningful ecological handprint. The documentation, data collection and research reporting also considered ethical issues. The research is part of a cyclic development of art symposiums as socially and environmentally engaged events.
WCEH 2024 Craftivist
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Britta Fluevog
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Britta Fluevog, Verena Winiwarter, Anna Svensson & Scott Braun set up a series of craftivist projects, workshops and a makerspace at the world congress of environmental history conference in Oulu, Finland 2024 and this is the documentation of the quilt made through the maker space and a quilting bee workshop.
Britta Fluevog, Verena Winiwarter, Anna Svensson & Scott Braun set up a series of craftivist projects, workshops and a makerspace at the world congress of environmental history conference in Oulu, Finland 2024 and this is the documentation of the quilt made through the maker space and a quilting bee workshop.open exposition comments (0)